Sick Excuses

[mickeyd]

I am retired so I do not have a current use for this listing of reasons to call in sick to work. As a long-time manager, I can not recall ever having to listen to any of these excuses, but maybe you did.

There are some reasons you should never give for calling in sick. An earlier survey from CareerBuilder listed some of the most absurd reasons for calling in sick, including the following:

• The employee said the ozone in the air flattened his tires.
• The employee’s pressure cooker had exploded and scared her sister, so she had to stay home.
• The employee had to attend the funeral of his wife’s cousin’s pet because he was an uncle and pallbearer.
• The employee was blocked in by police raiding her home.
• The employee had to testify against a drug dealer, and the dealer’s friend mugged him.
• The employee said her roots were showing, and she had to keep her hair appointment because she looked like a mess.

The employee ate cat food instead of tuna and was deathly ill.

• The employee said she wasn’t sick, but her llama was.
• The employee had used a hair remover under her arms and had chemical burns as a result. She couldn’t put her arms down by her sides due to that.
• The employee was bowling the game of his life and couldn’t make it to work.
• The employee was experiencing traumatic stress from a large spider found in her home. She had to stay home to deal with the spider.
• The employee said he had better things to do.

• The employee ate too much birthday cake.
• The employee was bitten by a duck.

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/e...tm_source=cn_nl&utm_content=14130292&utm_term=

 

[REWahoo]

Perfect thread title - those are definitely sick excuses.

 

[frayne]

Had an employee call in sick and was on his way to the hospital because he accidentally took his dog's heart worm medicine. He was a good employee and that was in fact the case. When he returned to work he was rode unmercifully by his co-workers as you can well imagine.

 

[MRG]

Yeah, I had to go home early because DW drowned her ducks. True story.

Don't let home raised little ducks go swimming unattended. Without mother's oil they sink. [emoji23]

I did have an employee call in, her DF's DM had passed away. Six months later she died a second time. We had an interesting conversation.

 

[MissMolly]

I had one call in due to her parrot being sick. Another called in and said her power was out so she had to stay home to keep blankets on her cats - she had like 14 cats.

 

[athena53]

I had an employee, very smart but tightly-wound, call me in a panic because there was a bat in her bedroom. I told her the bat was probably more scared than she was. Eventually the bat flew into another room, she closed the door to that room and called the landlord, and came to work. The landlord dealt with the bat. Most interesting reason I ever heard for being late, although not really sick.

And, similar to MRG's post but much worse- at an early job, one guy was fired after he took time off because his wife was pregnant, took days off when she went into labor, took a few days off after the baby subsequently died... and it turned out to be a total fabrication, other than the existence of the wife.

 

[erkevin]

But NOBODY beat Klinger's excuses!

 

[Choices]

Our employee called in to say that he and his mom had visited dad in prison over the weekend and mom missed dad soooo much Employee and mom stayed in town to hire an attorney to get dad out. This was why he could not come in until Weds or so.
I loved that job!

 

[MRG]

Oh yes.

My all time favorite was from a fellow in the sawmill. He called in from his hospital bed. His wife had shot him. Sure enough he got shot at home.

 

[Walt34]

I didn't do it but one guy I knew of called in drunk. The desk clerk asked if he was calling in sick, but he insisted that he was calling in drunk. So that's the note she wrote to the supervisor. Didn't hear of anything happening to him.

 

[travelover]

Not an employee thing, but once when visiting my DB on the opposite coast, his wife begged off joining us on an outing because she was afraid her pet turtle might flip on its back and not be able to right itself. I quipped that since they’d made it the last million years, they’d probably be OK for another few hours.

 

[Amethyst]

And then there is the flip side. Sick management!

I called in to get out of my night job (I was working 2 jobs during one of our wars) due to having had a miscarriage and emergency surgery. The (female) boss said, "But who am I going to get in your place?"

 

[marko]

In our early days, we had a guy who was up all night with allergies.

He felt bad about calling in sick because he wasn't really sick...just exhausted. So he called in a vacation day.

He was docked a day's pay by his idiot boss because "you can't call in for vacation without notice". He appealed to HR and eventually the boss was disciplined for being such a knucklehead.

Had another guy who, in the 24 years he worked with us, never once, not once worked a full 40 hours. Always had some lame excuse for leaving early, coming in late, kid problems, wife problems, neighbor problems. Sick this or that and for 20 years had a sob story about his terminally ill wife (which nobody believed). His wife eventually died 30 years later and all anyone could say was "finally!!".

 

[GalaxyBoy]

The employee said he had better things to do.

We have a winner!! Isn't that why we're on this forum in the first place?

 

[ransil]

I cut myself shaving and was late.
Work has flex hours so i still beat the boss in.

 

[Koolau]

I had an empl*yee go to a bar for lunch and then call in sick from the bar. Eventually Megacorp began terminating anyone who had so much as one alcoholic drink during lunch. Not back in the day, however. YMMV

 

[Rustward]

We had one call in to say that she would be a few hours late because thunderstorms woke her up at 3 AM and she needed her full 8 hours of sleep to be productive.

 

[Aerides]

The worst was getting actually sick while being on business travel - I couldn't bring myself to stay sick in the hotel vs. go into the office. Some of my worst "shoulda-been-a-sick-day"s were when I was visiting other locations, usually from catching some bug on the flight in. Including a trip to the ER while in another country - still had to go to a business dinner that night, and give a presentation the next day with my new fresh stitches!

So when arranged budget to fly in one one of my offsite team, who then called in sick and claimed he would just work out of the hotel... yeah he found himself on one of those lists that year.